Death and the Slayer
by Dagon ng Likha
Summary: Death is your gift, the First Slayer told her. A collection of Buffy's dealings with various aspects of Afterlife. Rating may change per chapter
1. Three Times Rightly: Greek myth

**Three Times Rightly **

**Rating:** K

**Pairing:** the god of death

**Summary:** Oh Valley Girl of springtime.

**A/N:** Obviously, Greek mythology.

**Disclaimer:** Er, is it possible for one to own Greek mythology? Me gots no dibs on Buffyverse.

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**Three Times Rightly**

The first time she died, she was barely a woman. A dark magic struck her after a few moments' struggle. She had not fully grasped the burden she carried then, and she was the only one. She only stayed there for a few minutes, not enough for her to see what her afterlife.

It was enough, however, for the afterlife to notice _her_.

The second time she died she was not much older in years, but tragedy aged her spring meadow eyes. Her death was deliberate, then, for she had family to protect, and friends fighting at her side. Her stay here was longer, and she was peaceful lying amongst pallid flowers.

But then she was stolen once again, and a shadow went forward to its king.

The third time she died she was neither young nor old. Her kind was mortal, and so full of power that too often they met a violent end. She saved the world and succumbed to illness, but passed peacefully away for the last time. Her friends and her daughters—for that was how all of her kind had come to regard her, as their proud mother—did not try to wake her again.

Powers met to discuss her fate. They argued long and loudly, some for her return to the earth once more, others for her just reward, and others still for her soul's annihilation.

At this, a murky shadow traveled to its master's side, and whispered something in his ear. The power stood, then, and made his request. None could deny him.

She stood on the banks of a black river, vaguely recalling the hooded figure in the boat. When she searched her person for a coin, the boatman shook his head.

"There is no need, my lady," he said, the most he would say to any shade, and he helped her into the boat. On the other side of the river, the three-headed dog barked in greeting, and she walked until she reached a black palace.

She was taken to a court where three hags sat, three horrors who she knew would judge her worth. Two alabaster thrones lay empty and waiting.

You are ruled by your passions, she was told by one, but you lived the life of a virtuous hero.

You hid in frippery and babbles, spake another, but your intellect was keen and piercing.

You lived three times rightly, judged the last, and for that you shall live in the islands blessed.

She could not account for the sheer sense of loss suddenly plaguing her heart. A shadow form appeared by her side, coalescing into a giant of a wolf that clutched fear around him like a bone. While the three gasped and shied away, she felt only relief.

Leave us, it commanded. And the three judges fled.

The form—it had no face—bowed to her.

_My lady_, it said. _I am your gift_.

"And it appears that you've finally received it," a voice said behind her. She turned, and was still. The bleak realm seemed to brighten for a moment, tint slightly in the light of spring.

He was tall and pale, slender but built a warrior. Rich black curls hung just above his shoulders, framing a powerful, perfect face. It seemed only she could see the compassion in that stern onyx gaze.

Compassion, and something deeper. It was coming to her slowly now, trickling in like water from one of the sacred two pools…

He took her hand, and the contact resonated in her soul. She looked up at that perfect, beloved face again.

"Welcome home, my love," he said to her, "my Persephone."

She smiled then, her face filled with spring and sunlight.

"It's Buffy now," she said.

And she greeted her king, her husband with a kiss.

_The lord of the underworld once saw the young daughter of the harvest and loved her. He took her to be his wife in the cold land of the dead._

_Now her mother wept and raged, for spring was missing and the gods above could not tell her where she went. And so the green earth was green no more, and the fields went barren and grey._

_The queen of the dead was made, the, to leave her lord and walk the living world once more. But she had eaten three pomegranate seeds, and so was bound to the afterlife. For six cycles she spends existence in the world above, and another six ruling beside the lord of the underworld/_

_Yet no one knew that she had fallen in love with her lord, and yearned for the earth to sleep._

_She had come home, at last._


	2. Meeting Uncle Joe: Meet Joe Black

**Meeting Uncle Joey**

**Rating:** K

**Pairing:** none; friendship/family

**Summary:** "Oh, Buffy." He flashes pretty-sad-pretty eyes again. "We will meet many, many times."

**A/N:** Crossover with "Meet Joe Black." It takes place at the last scene, where Joe Black leads Bill Parrish over the bridge.

**Disclaimer: **Meet Joe Black and BtVS do not belong to me.

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**Meeting Uncle Joe**

When Buffy was very, very little, Joyce took her to meet her cousins.

The Parrish clan lived on the other side of the country, and the upper crust family had deemed Joyce, a first cousin, something of a rebel when she moved to the West Coast to try and fulfill her dream of becoming an artist. Her marriage to Hank, a rising real estate agent with Ivy League credentials, "healed" the rift, and the Summers were accordingly invited to the patriarch's sixty-fifth birthday.

And so, five-year-old Buffy in her starchy cotton dress and her silk ribbons shivered in the cool New York winter air, as Joyce held baby Dawn and tried to chat with her estranged relatives.

"Buffy, you say?" murmured Aunt Allison. "What an odd name."

"Joyce insisted on the name," Hank said, and Buffy didn't hear her mommy's reply.

"Sweetie, why don't you go play over there?" he added, and before Joyce could protest, the little girl toddled off to watch the ice sculpture slowly melt.

But sitting quietly wasn't, and never would be, Buffy's talent, and so the little girl soon ran to the gardens, and started exploring the pretty flowers within. When she was peering under a willow tree—_willow_, she thought, _what a pretty name!_—she saw Grampa (or Great-Uncle, she didn't know, Mommy and Daddy told her different things) Bill talking to a pretty man.

He was a man, because he was wearing a fancy suit. But Buffy suddenly wanted his color hair.

She turned her attention back to the Willow tree.

"Little girl, what are you doing alone out here?"

She turned around, and Grampa-Great-Uncle Bill was no longer there. Buffy stared at the man.

"I'm not allowed to talk to strangers," she said.

He smiled, and Buffy thought his smile was real pretty too. "Buffy dear, I'm not a stranger. You met me awhile ago, remember?"

She remembered something about Aunt Susan, and Uncle Quince, and what Uncle Quince said about someone who liked Aunt Susan. "You're 'That Bastard Joe Black' Mister Drew was talking about!"

She paused. "What does bastard mean?"

The tall man in black laughed aloud. "Ah, Buffy.

"Call me Uncle Joe."

He leaned forward to ruffle her hair, and Buffy scowled, because little girls who had to sit still five minutes for their mommies to fix their hair into perfect blonde ringlets did not want their hair to be mussed up again. She quickly grabbed his hand and yanked it down.

The contact of skin to bare skin made the stranger freeze, and as pretty colored lights danced up in the sky his laugh disappeared, and his pretty, suddenly sad eyes suddenly made Buffy feel uncomfortable.

But then he smiled again, and Buffy thought she'd like to grow up to _like_ this pretty stranger.

"I have to go now, little girl," he said softly.

"Will I see you again?" she asked, pouting a little, because he's the first grown-up who didn't make her feel like kicking something. He was more like someone she could have tea parties with, and sing, and dance silly music to.

"Oh, Buffy." He flashed pretty-sad-pretty eyes again. "We will meet many, many times."

A particular burst of light made Buffy look up, and it was beyond pretty, the sparkling blue, green, yellow, pink twirling across the sky like dancing fairies.

As the remnants of the fireworks died off, a frantic Joyce later found Buffy sleeping under the willow tree.

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edit: just realized I switched tenses halfway in the story. Grr.


End file.
